Chuck Sweeny: Badges, badges, more badges at safety summit

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 17, 2013 at 4:00 PM

In these days of ever-tightening budgets, more than 90 law enforcement and political leaders from all over Winnebago County area gathered Wednesday at Chicago Rockford International Airport to hear experts give examples of cooperative strategies to fight crime.

Chuck Sweeny

In these days of ever-tightening budgets, more than 90 law enforcement and political leaders from all over Winnebago County area gathered Wednesday at Chicago Rockford International Airport to hear experts give examples of cooperative strategies to fight crime.

The Register Star’s Kevin Haas has a news story about the four-hour meeting in the paper and at rrstar.com, so I’ll not dwell much on details. I was impressed by all the precious metal in the room — badges, badges and more badges. In addition, there were politicians and criminal justice system leaders, Chief 17th Circuit Judge Joe McGraw, State’s Attorney Joe Bruscato, Mayor Larry Morrissey, Loves Park Mayor Darryl Lindberg and County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen, to name just a few. In this fractured county of many fiefdoms, that togetherness is newsworthy.

Here are a few items that caught my ears:

“Random patrols do little to address crime control. You have to have directed patrols, pre-emptive policing,” said David Bradford, director of Northwestern University Center for Public Safety. While compiling loads of data is fine, crime-solving is still related to relationships between people in the neighborhood and the beat cop.

Thomas W. Fleming Jr., who is deputy chief of police/administrative services for the Cook County Sheriff’s Police, touted the idea of “crime-free housing,” in which landlords are licensed by police, an idea that is court-tested and legal, he said.

Fleming also listed many examples of suburban and Chicago police working with the sheriff’s police.

Steve Peterson, president of a security company and former deputy superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, stressed the importance of superiors “listening to the officers.” He said he’s a “big advocate of (joint) task forces to bring more resources to the crime battle, but warned, “Everyone has to have an equal say, and everyone must be committed to contributing people.”

Near the end of the event, Christiansen released a 10-point “potential action items” list, which is published in Thursday’s newspaper and at rrstar.com.

“We’re going to have another summit in about two months, focusing more on human services needs as they relate to eradicating the causes of crime,” Christiansen said.
“Our job now is to get together and figure out how to maximize patrolling among the various law enforcement agencies in Winnebago County.”

The public safety summit was a start. We have many such meetings in the Rockford area. We’re famous for getting together to listen to experts — then going back to our everyday jobs and doing business the same old, ineffective way.

If we really want to take a bigger bite out of crime, though, we’ll have to get out of our comfort zones and join together in a countywide effort.